


Cover Me (in Lies, with Love)

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 19:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20069521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: ...he knew who she was.  Remembering himself was much shakier territory.Inspired by ermioney.





	Cover Me (in Lies, with Love)

_Give me reasons we should be complete_  
_ You should be with him, I can't compete_  
_ You looked at me like I was someone else, _ _oh well_

\- Slow Dancing in the Dark by Joji

* * *

His friends huddled around him, briefing him and giving him a pep talk on his mission and objectives. They were outside a carefully staged cabin within Wall Rose.

"No pressure, Armin. Remember she likes you. Somehow she likes talking to you," Eren instructed, clapping his hands on Armin's shoulders and massaging his shoulders as though coaching Armin for a boxing match.

"Only stupid bullies don't like our Armin," Mikasa endorsed.

"She didn't kill you dead, so that's something," Jean commented.

"Bruh, you need to sound like you don't care too much when you talk to a girl," Connie whispered loudly, taking Armin under his wing.

"She make you feel smol, member you the Colossus!" Oh Sasha.

Armin looked to Sasha, for a moment askance, then a sudden detachment blanketed his normally expressive eyes and mouth. "But she doesn't know that, does she?"

His searching gaze swept through their circle. "Does she?"

"No no. We're a go." Thumbs up from the idiot twins. He could count on their honesty, if not their collective IQ. Armin inhaled through his nostril and exhaled through his mouth, a movement which he noticed Captain Levi frequently invoke post battle or after a heated discussion with Eren.

Despite consciously killing a man to save his friends, Armin didn't feel nearly as nauseous as he did before he crossed the threshold, armed with naught but his wits and a hand lantern. 

Inside, the cabin was basically one living area with one wall sectioning off a waste room. The confines of it would have been cramped if his squad hadn't completely stripped it of all furniture and sharp fixtures. A thick canvas screen nailed to the exterior logs blocked out natural light, hence the lantern.

Though Armin was indeed the Colossus inheritor, he remained 5' 5". Besides his shorter hair cut, no other physical changes marked Armin's transformation.

His head space, though. The structure of his mind. The mental barriers which sifted for grains of truth through muddied intrigue and the haze of war. Felt like something had kicked in a gate; something was loose.

The door, on oil-slicked hinges, shut near silently. Armin wore the softest shirt he owned and cloth pants that fit him comfortably. He needed to go in barefoot, unarmed, and unstrapped.

Armin placed the lantern on a dangling hook.

Levi had prepped her well, knotting several feet of coarse, blond ropes around her clothed physique. Her arms were locked to her chest in a gentle, but secure embrace. Her fingers were practically gloved in silken cords; she couldn't twitch so much as a pinky to self-harm. A skein of clean cloth softly kissed upon her lips while blunting the enameled edges of her teeth. White silk shimmered on her fair brow, so pristine that flicking gray shadows gave away the movements of her eyelids.

She, too, had been stripped of her boots, her straps, and her Military Police jacket. She wore white head to toe, like a little lamb. With a nasty kick. Finer material roped her toes to her knees, the lax tension discouraging her from standing or lashing out. Besides a few red lines where she had struggled, not a bruise or cut marred her skin; Levi had bound her well, suspiciously well.

Armin's instructions were clear: Get her talking. Then when their little lamb ceased bleating, she would be given to a deserving soldier.

She belonged to Marley. She was in Survey Corps custody. She was someone's daughter, friend, and comrade.

She wasn't his.

Yet he was affected by the certainty of giving her up when their time together ended. Errant thought trundled slowly through the gates of his mind.

Armin walked on the wood floor, which had been washed with lemon and soap and buffed and polished to avoid splinters or scrapes on the body of his captive. 

Their captive, Armin corrected himself.

The cleanly smells blended soothingly with the pine and cedar wood. Armin was so grateful she wore a blindfold. The back of his neck was scorching; he was practically steaming up from the enclosed intimacy of sitting and talking to her.

Armin had wanted to talk to her since he first saw her at the recruitment center. At five foot nothing and less so when she slouched, it was doubtful that the elitists would select her as a Warrior.

Soldier, Armin corrected.

Armin centered himself; he knew who she was. Remembering himself was much shakier territory.

He folded himself onto the cabin floor, sitting criss cross apple sauce, maybe three feet from where she slumped, neutralized but safe.

"I miss you, Annie."

When she flinched, Armin flailed his palms, before forgetting that she couldn't see where his hands were. 

"P.S: Hi!" 

What the-- what had come out of his mouth. It wasn't from his brain. 

"Ah, ignore that, strike the P.S. P.S. is only something you'd write in a letter. Like, P.S: I love you XOXO. P.S. is short for postscript. Typically, the correspondent has wasted the page space by the bottom margin of the last page, which is why XOXO is used in lieu of hugs and kisses."

There was no do over, oh Sina oh Sina oh sh-- 

He peeked through his trembling fingers. Arlert theory confirmed. She was justifiably laughing at his expense. It didn't take a brainiac to see that.

Armin took his hands out of his face, fingers edging along the gap in between the smooth boards.

"Annie. I missed you."

She rolled away from the direction of his voice, stiff as a board, her body screaming "DON'T COME NEAR ME."

"I wish- I wish you could talk to me," Armin said, hating how the spartan room echoed and magnified his request.

Both of their heads turned when three tentative taps sounded on the cabin door.

"That's my cue," Armin informed Annie. He clapped both hands over his mouth, biting his tongue and heading for the door without another word. He took his words and his light with him when he quit the cabin. Though he expected it, he grudgingly followed instructions.

He himself had scripted the last phrase he would say to her, for the momentous occasion of their first meeting.

Originally, he had meant to say: "That's my cue to leave. See you later."

Realizing that he was giving her a clue that she would see him again, he amended it: "That's my cue to leave. Goodbye."

But then the farewell was a negative confirmation. She was to be deprived of any certainty, if weeks of planning were to come to fruition. Eren had clocked an awful lot of time under Levi's boot to put that beautiful sparkle to the cabin floors.

After lying in his bedroll for a week, counting backwards from 1009 to 1 in odd prime numbers, Armin edited his script to read: "That's my cue to leave."

Armin imagined how she would feel, latching onto the assurance that he would leave. There was a power to words. He had to be careful to give her words, not power.

He dreamed of himself walking tall into snowy woods, hot and hungry, from chasing birds. One downy, white goose, in particular, got the better of him; quick, paranoid, and meaty little thing. He had stood tall, stewing, in a place of nothing. It came to him slowly, alert, knowing full well what it was doing, drawn to his warmth curling like an enticing finger.

Then he covered it with steam.

Armin awoke in a sweat, licking his lips.

"That's my cue," Armin whispered. He would feed her three words, zero power, the recommended diet of prisoners. 

If he was going to defeat a warrior, he needed to talk the talk. Her goose was cooked; she just didn't know it.

* * *

"Annie," he greeted her. No hey or hello. Nothing to indicate if he had truly left her or if he had been in the room with her the whole time.

"Wish you could talk to me," Armin said, echoing his last visit.

Three tentative taps by a different guard who cued him last time. He had trained all of them to uniformly tap her door the way he did. Nothing to suggest who cued him. Nothing to confirm that it wasn't him.

Nothing that, to her, wasn't him.

Echoes were powerful.

* * *

He was careful not to splash from his wooden cup, the only other item he was allowed besides the hand lantern.

"Annie," he said, this time from two feet away.

"I want to talk to you. Can I?"

She scooted towards him with a foot in-between them; she nodded, the bare minimum of a head dip.

Based on Hanji's experiments on Eren, they knew that a titan shifter who didn't eat or drink was also a titan shifter who didn't poop or pee. Her whites and her ropes remained unsoiled while her insides were most likely agony.

"I guess you probably want to know how come you're not in your crystal pod," Armin said, allowing the wonder to carry in his meandering tone.

"But I have other things that I've been wanting to say to you for a long time."

Armin's tears soaked into a loaded down sentence, genuine sorrow and disgust, flowing from his humanity. "What am I supposed to think? When I know that you had Marco's equipment. When Jean told me how he found Marco? Did you at least shoot him dead before he was half eaten? Did you at least do it yourself so it was quick, so he wouldn't be scared or hurting or screaming for long?"

Armin let his grief echo through the cabin, until she filled up on his grief. Knowing that all she had was her empty stomach and a dry throat, Armin gave her nothing but grief so that it would pierce her ears, sink like lead in her stomach, and kick back up her throat.

She shook her head, more visibly, but no tears soaked her blindfold.

"Your actions tell me that you're not my friend. You think of me as your enemy."

Crying was very thirsty work. Armin slurped two-thirds of the contents of his cup down messily, letting it drip down his face, and puddle on the floor. Annie twitched when he set the cup down.

Armin blustered. "This was a bad idea. I can't do this. Command thinks cuz we're friends you'd wanna open up. I can't use you like that, Annie. I can't forget when we were friends. Wish I could help you even though--" 

Three tentative taps cued him. He knocked his cup over with his knee as he leapt to his feet, grateful the timing had worked out, as rehearsed. As the cup rolled in a hopeless loop, Armin snapped it up.

He handed the lantern and the cup to his comrade who shut the door. This time he wore dark clothes. A crystal from Reiss cavern hung from his neck. In its soft glow, he watched softly lit whites roll one foot away from where he sat. Annie put her softly lit gag to the puddle of water, patiently letting it soak. Then she bit and sucked the knot, a needful moan, as she swallowed Armin's water.

He stayed with her, almost like a true friend, as she blindly wept.

After a few hours, he needed to go relieve himself. Armin opened the door, shot a quick thumbs up to his comrade, who gave him a re-fueled lantern.

"Annie," he said, sounding semi-frantic. "I-- I'll be with you in a minute!"

He opened the waste room door which had deliberately stayed shut. Leaving the waste room door cracked, he took a genuinely heart felt whiz. He splashed his hands in the cold water that sat in the wash bowl. While waste would drain out, there was no plumbing in the cabin. Eren had been Levi's preferred mode of running water for clean up.

From the way she wiggled when he stepped foot into the living area, Armin wondered if she needed to go, too. Likely not, given how her parched titan body would allocate the water to metabolic processes, leaving no surplus to trickle into her bladder.

But maybe his bodily functions had sparked that human tickle.

"Sorry. I calmed down," Armin said. He sat one foot from her, got a whiff of his feet, and then he backed up another foot away. He wasn't going to torture her with his foot odor.

Annie moved closer to him though.

Well, uh, ok then.

"Are you comfortable like that? I mean with your hair?" Armin asked.

At her head shake, he said, "I can't tie it back but I can move some of it out of your face. Can I do that? My hands are washed."

Annie nodded but she didn't move to sit up or anything.

"Can you get up?"

Head shake. No.

Armin figured she wouldn't move on her own, between no water and no sunlight. 

"I'm gonna help you sit then." He stuck his fists under her arms and squatted until he could raise her up. She slumped forward but remained sitting, the pale blond of her hair hanging loose.

"Hey, I'm gonna take off this blindfold since I'm-- I'm sorry Annie. I could've taken it off of you. I just didn't know how you'd react if I laid hands on you without permish."

Armin untied the pale silk. He hunched down, balancing on the balls of his feet, as he knotted the ends of the silk together. He carded his fingers through Annie's hair, finger tips firmly dragging along her scalp. When he bunched her hair, he winded her hair through the silk loop many, many times. For a stiff lower pony tail.

His hands briskly rubbed her upper back, making no other move to touch her. "You alright? That's better, right?"

She nodded.

"Good. I don't think I can get away with getting that gag off of you." Armin sighed and rubbed at his hair. "Wish you could talk to me."

Three tentative taps.

"My cue," he sighed. He squeezed her shoulder before leaving her and taking the hand lantern with him.

When the door was sealed shut and bolted from the outside, Connie wanted to talk to him. Armin put his fingers to his lips.

The hand lantern was necessary outside of the cabin. Survey Corps pitched a dark canvas tent outside the entrance to serve as a reminder that no one was allowed to converse where Annie would hear and to block out any light that wasn't from Armin.

"Did she see you?" Connie asked.

Armin shook his head; he had been incredibly tempted to look into her eyes even after he had gone through the trouble of positioning her back to the cabin door.

"It's only been two days," Armin answered.

* * *

Without the blindfold, Armin changed out the hand lantern to a three-candle candlebra.

"Annie," he said. Her hair had fallen loose again and she had rolled onto her side.

He sat next to her, parallel to her crumpled figure, inches from being snugly aligned from shoulder to calf, if she was willing.

"Titan crystal is amazing; we collected cartfuls of specimens after you kicked Eren's butt. This stuff is harder than diamonds and you can make it in your titan form. Really incredible. If I had your power, I'd use it to reinforce bridge supports, make tools that don't rust or need sharpening, or shatterproof windows."

"But then again, I'm not where you're from. I hate that you've used titan crystals to wipe out whole squads. To kidnap my friend. To destroy Shiganshina and Maria. That's where I'm from."

Annie's back pressed into his splayed fingers. He rubbed her upper back, deepening the contact, letting the warmth and weight of his hand loosen her spine.

"Will you let me hold you? Annie." 

Her movement of her head nod caught the candlelight. Once more, Armin put his hands beneath her underarms, pulling her in a gentle slide, until his thigh pillowed her head. Mikasa had embraced him like this so many times; it was odd for him to be the comforter. He smoothed out her hair and then crossed his arms over her shoulder to stabilize her, making sure his hands went no further.

She would let him go lower if he didn't spoil this.

"If I had the ability to make titan crystal, I would harden a titan's foot with crystal and smash anything apart. You can smash a crystal pod that way," Armin shared.

She flopped from his thigh onto the floor as the implications of his words sank in. He pulled her bodily into his lap and put his hand on her cheek. Annie finally faced him; the blues of their eyes like the heart of a glacier sinking into steaming hot springs.

"Because you've killed so many of my friends, it's easier for me to say this. I know how it feels, so I can be here for you without judgment or criticism when I tell you: I killed your friend, too. He cried out for his friends. He cried out for you."

"Annie! Annie!" She balled up as though struck; if she wasn't as dry as a frozen wasteland, Armin didn't doubt she would have shed tears.

"Did you know how he felt about you? I do."

"Do you think he hates you for not saving him? He doesn't."

"If he were here now, he would hold you tightly and he would say..." Armin trailed off as he gripped her harshly, bracing her arched body to himself, laying her chin on the firm line of his shoulder.

"I miss you, Annie." He said it exactly the way that Bertholdt would have said it.

He ran his hand down her hair. "His thoughts are my thoughts. His power is my power. Annie, do you understand what I'm trying to say to you? I couldn't tell you straight out because I'm a coward, after all."

Her hot, panting breath on his neck told him that she understood.

"I killed and ate your friend for his titan power."

He needed to really tell her an unxpected truth. He needed to hit her with the truth, distilled, hard, and sharp like titan crystal. Like a titan's foot armored with crystal, his words came down on her cold shell.

"It wasn't worth it." Armin's tears soaked her hoodie. "You're the only one who understands what I'm feeling right now."

Three tentative taps.

"That's my cue," Armin said, falling back on the script when there was nothing left.

"J-just a minute! Give me more time!" Armin cried when Annie curled into him, shaking her head. 

The door creaked but did not close. No voice called to Armin. Whether it was day or night, no additional light came in through the crack in the door. No sound, no light came in that wasn't Armin. 

Armin didn't leave when it was his cue to go because she had communicated her feelings to him of her own free will. He had already meant to break the certainty which that scripted line carried for Annie. He allowed her that hope, if it came from him.

"I'm here. I'll stay." He folded her into his lap again, rewarding her until her entire body went slack. 

Even if she was simply following her warrior training, he didn't feel right leaving her on the floor. Armin removed the shirt from his back and rolled it up into a pillow for her. He could do nothing else for her; he let the rope hold her while he departed, taking with him the light, leaving the seed of hope which he planted.

* * *

Seeds needed water and light.

On his last visit, he had brought in a lantern. At three tentative taps, he had walked through the door and left the lantern for her. She had plenty of time and light to explore the cabin room. As anticipated, she checked out the waste room, where the bowl of slightly tainted water sat.

He knew it when he walked in and the odor hit his nose. Annie had sat for awhile in her own puddle, meaning she hadn't been able to control her water intake.

"I- I'll get help! Mikasa will know what to do!"

At this, Annie gargled a protest.

"B-but Annie. I'm a boy! And you're not! This is not-- no good, not good. If you're OK with me seeing you naked, I won't have to pull Mikasa." He was not entirely acting.

She watched him tap three tentative times on the door. Then he was the one that opened the door. Armin stepped through and waved to Jean. They both left the tented area.

"So you need a change of clothes, towels, a flask of water... did she wet herself already or is it her period? You're really freaking out." Jean seemed extremely amused, as the person who wasn't having to deal with a girl.

"Oh my God, her period," Armin repeated. He hadn't thought of that contingency. She was already covered in tons of blood. Figuratively. 

"How come you're cool about this?" Armin asked Jean suspiciously. "I've seen you talk to girls. I don't know why you don't talk to one who's by herself, without her friends around."

"You mean like what you're doing with the traitor?" Jean said. "I'm not going to kidnap a girl just to make small talk."

"Just give me the stuff," Armin grouched.

He was grateful to Jean for getting him out of his mood; the cabin room was heavy when he came back in. He sopped up Annie's mess.

"I'm cutting your clothes off. I'm sorry about this. The rope has to stay on," Armin said.

He had to take his time with it, ignoring the shivers of her skin when the flat of his knife chilled her. Letting her see his discomfort. Showing her that he wasn't the creep who would feel up a girl in this situation. He put her cold, damp clothes with the soiled towels. Rinsed her skin. Wiped down her ropes, squeezing out excess water.

Then he wrapped her in a cloth robe, the only article that would fit over her knotted bindings.

"That's better. I have to get rid of these."

Annie made another noise through her gag, to get his attention.

He paid attention. Blinking her glacial eyes, so sharp they coud take a man apart, Annie shrugged off her robe and splayed her thickly muscled thighs, rolling one of her ankles to keep things interesting.

"You're beautiful, Annie," Armin said, honestly dazed by the privileged view she had allowed him.

"I understand why Bertholdt loves you," Armin revealed, confirming for her which of her comrades had seen her as special, which of her comrades died anyway.

Then Annie's eyes thawed out, stripped of their daunting energy which armored her true thoughts and emotions. Her face was as naked as her soul, body snared in constricting coils.

When she crossed her legs to cover up, Armin put the robe back around her. He avoided touching her skin; it would be too much for her naked feelings.

Armin took no cues to leave; he went away with the dirty laundry.

* * *

The next time Annie shook off her robe, Armin had a serious talk with her.

"Annie, I wish you could talk to me," Armin began. He took her into his arms, trying not to think of how the sensations in his body fluently translated to the yearnings of his mind.

With shaking fingers, he tugged her gag from between her teeth to her neck. His fingers massaged at her jaw, unstuck blonde strands from her wet cheek.

"Touch me, Armin. I'll talk," Annie said. She tucked in her dry lips. "I'll talk."

"We'll talk," Armin emphasized.

But first he trickled water down her parched throat. Ran the succulent pulp of fresh sliced orange along her lips. She nipped his fingers for more.

"You're taking food from an Eldian devil, you know," Armin said. "This doesn't mess with your worldly views?"

Annie smiled brilliantly, like the first time he had heard her laughing in Stohess. Her face totally shifted, with no help from the Female titan powers.

"That's how Bert thought," Annie said, wrinkling her nose. "I didn't pay attention in class."

"Class?"

"Our classes from when we went to grade school and then later, specialized tutoring, once admitted to the Program. The higher ups don't just throw you out on a mission if you can't hold a pencil."

"All of you went to school," Armin repeated. His eyes brightened as he plied her for details about the teachers and the various subject matters. "Do you have to be rich to go to school?"

"No," Annie answered. "You have to be smart."

She turned her head into his chest and rubbed her nose into his sleeve. "Take off your shirt, Armin."

"Why?"

"Be smarter, Armin," she teased.

"Tell me about Marley, where you're from," Armin said. "You've been to Shigan, at least once. Long enough to complete your mission."

"And if I don't give away state secrets?"

"They'll feed you to one of my friends all the more sooner. Your options are to tell me now in your own words or my comrade will report your personal experiences posthumously." Armin ducked his face, brows furrowed under his pale bangs in the dim candlelight. "I don't want the latter outcome. Your story would be written against you."

"Oh, Armin. This is why."

He waited for her to finish her statment. Instead, Annie trailed off and set another bewitching look on him. "Take off your shirt."

"Girls like you don't go for guys like me." Somehow, in all of his divergent speculations, he hadn't foreseen this conundrum of her potentially seeing him naked.

"I'd go for Bertholdt if he were here," Annie said, irked. "He'd do what I say."

Armin gently set her down. "I'll never be like him; I'm terrible at falling in line; I always seem to be falling behind it."

He tapped the door. Three tentative taps.

"You run, coward! You should've ate Reiner! Grow thicker skin!" Annie talked tough, but she curled softly into herself when he was out of sight.

Not long after Armin exited did he return with a patch of pink silk. Annie twisted her head when he looped it over her eyes. She butted him in his middle, knocking the wind from him. Armin accepted the pain as due penalty, hugging her head before he knotted the blinders in place.

"What the hell, Armin," Annie griped.

"You don't need to see me," Armin said. "I look pretty pathetic and beat up from what you said to me."

Annie was startled when he pressed his muscled torso to her back, sitting her along his legs with her robe crumpled at her waist and caught between him and her; she hadn't seen him peel off his shirt. Despite the diamond loops and the convoluted twists binding her, Annie could feel him on her, skin-to-skin, a dozen accidental strokes each time Armin breathed her in.

"I can't gag you after all. We're going to talk through this." He linked his arms over the braids of her rope, covering her hands.

His ear pressed into her jaw. "You'll never get to go home, not the one that you carry in your heart. I learned that from you, Annie. What did you think of my hometown from before? Not a bad place to live, right?"

"Why are you doing this?" Annie demanded. "You want my sorry excuse for an apology?"

"I asked for your opinion, Annie, since you're not up for divulging classified info," Armin said, and she could feel his cheeks rounding up in an amused smile.

* * *

As the seasonal chill set in, Armin brought pelt for his girl. Their girl.

She lay nude and unbound while Armin massaged the pink indents on the backs of her hands, her neck, the soft swell curving on her lower back, the shapely musculature that firmed up her ass.  
  
Her ropes lay in loose hoops, a kinked love nest of sorts. Armin planned to tie her thighs to her waist and also bind her wrists behind her neck. With her knees and elbows jutting, she would look like a pink butterfly.  
  
"How are you making this place toasty?" Annie asked.  
  
"I figured out how to build a proxy shell surrounding our location, ejected myself, and I'll check its integrity when the interior temperature dips."  
  
"You need some glasses," Annie said, bending up her leg for Armin to circle a firm thumb and squeeze the tops of her calf.  
  
"What makes you say that? I can read without spectacles."  
  
"It's a nerd thing," Annie said fondly. He wouldn't understand her modern references and she liked him anyway. 

"You've done your homework. You know how long Bert took to figure out he could come out of the Colossus in his actual body?" she asked.  
  
Annie closed her eyes and swallowed, letting the stroke of fur and the press of Armin's hands, soothe away her shaking lips and sinking heart.  
  
"Bert didn't like coming out of his armor. He knew how to do it well when he finally risked it. He made excellent notes about his techniques that I benefitted a lot from," Armin said.  
  
"You're a quick study." Annie looked at him teasingly over her shoulder. Armin's gaze pinned her down, as though he had never observed a more perfect specimen. "You found my spots."  
  
Armin smiled, a little embarrassed by her approval. Annie had seemed extra forbidding when she thrashed the boys. He never for one second forgot what she could do to him.   
  
"I'm still learning about you."  
  
His walked his fingers down her spine, skimming a touch lighter than threads on the curls of her sex. When he rolled her over on the fur, Annie's nipples peaked hard.  
  
She bit her arm. "I'm not something you study."  
  
"Wish I saw you near a campfire," Armin said. He was looping cords around her leg.  
  
"Why? Will I ever see the outside of this place?" Annie wondered.  
  
Not that she was gagging to leave, with Armin tented in his pants and his breathing gone funny as he tied her up. She eyed his upper body, unexpectedly well formed. He looked scrawny smalls in a jacket but when she scatched his back and gripped him by her thighs... well, guys needed meat to play with Annie.  
  
"Bert looked after you on late nights even when Reiner was on watch. You look like you slept good, considering."  
  
Considering what her mission was.  
  
"Did he lose sleep over me?" Annie said. "Fool."  
  
"Girls like you do that." Armin patted her legs which were roped into place. She let him drag her hands along the soft furs and over her head.  
  
"It's easy enough to catch some shut eye. You roll your eyes back from the idiot things you had to hear all day. Then you pass out."  
  
"Not when you're a warrior dreaming about his comrade."  
  
"You're not a warrior," Annie pointed out, gentle and sharp like a subtle blade. "Come here, soldier."  
  
But when she closed her eyes, when she only felt the weight of him, like a pillar that would either lift her higher or crush her under its colossal weight...  
  
"Annie, Annie," panted the boy who loved her. He cupped her face and kissed her in sweet little stings.  
  
Annie looked, expecting to fall into eyes that were blue. His eyes were dark, pupils blown almost to the edges. Annie had never seen that expression, as though he had wanted her from long before she had kicked up hell on this cursed island.  
  
If Bertholdt was somewhere in Armin's mind, it wasn't impossible that he was inside her, in this passionate moment.  
  
Three tentative taps. When he had to withdraw from her, Annie couldn't help herself.  
  
"I miss you," she tried.  
  
"Who?" He caressed her, damp and throbbing, methodically teasing out information.  
  
"You," Annie answered, into the darkness eclipsing his eyes, the gates to his soul.   
  
Maybe she wouldn't see past the walls of this proverbial tower, but she could look for the boy behind the man.

* * *

Annie had escaped but she helped him along, leaving a trail of destroyed lives and trampled buildings.  
  
He cornered her in at the foot of a mountain where she evaded Scouts to hit the shore. They were in a maze of boulders grown over with moss and vine.  
  
"You came alone. Smart boy," Annie purred. She stripped off her pilfered uniform and shook her hair out, looking like a mythical hot babe from wives' tales and bawdy verses.  
  
"Annie, that's not. This is not going to work," Armin said. He cast his eyes on the scope of his weapon and his weapon on their target. His target.  
  
Annie put her hands behind her head and spread her cheeks in a wide stance.  
  
Armin booted the backs of her knees, hand on her graceful nape like she was already his.  
  
"I'm tying you up, for your own good, Annie."  
  
"I missed that. I miss you," Annie said.  
  
"That's not what I meant. Now your legs." Armin was overly serious and sweating bullets.  
  
"You love my legs."  
  
"Purely from aesthetics, yes, you have the finest pair in the kingdom." Armin kept himself talking in a light tone as he cuffed her wrists, his palms sweaty and fingers twitching.  
  
Annie arched into him, her bare back relishing the grit and dust on the jacket and belts of his uniform. He felt so real to her.  
  
She stood on her toes and executed a flawless split. Annie raised her left leg all the way up, past the limits of Armin's fantasies.  
  
Before Armin knew what he was doing, his palms were stuck to her left calf, fingers curling into her ankle. Like a dopey fly caught in a sugar cube.  
  
"Missed you," he said. His pried up his leather skirt and unfastened his bottoms, thrusting inside of her all within a few minutes. Annie sighed in relief as he groaned in despair. Maybe it was the mountain air or the days of hot pursuit, but Armin was rougher with her, straining her knee from each squeeze every time he plowed deeper.  
  
Annie's cuffed wrists dug into the back of his neck, allowing her to hang draped around his cock. He was her pillar. She felt the little kiss on her shin even when he split her pelvis, their loins locked in combat.  
  
"Annie, oh Annie."  
  
"How long you want this?" Annie asked, losing her breath before Armin grabbed her chin and claimed her lips.  
  
"Forever, Annie. If I stop," he paused, stilling himself so he wouldn't spill too soon. Annie cried out when he worked her clit, grinding his head where he had learned her. Her elbows fluttered, face screwed up, nose in the air, as her muscles coiled, her toes twitching in the clouds.  
  
When he moved inside her, his tongue and lips sucking at her spiked pulse, Annie just knew she couldn't let him let her go. She wouldn't give up on her man or the lost boy inside of him. That's what love demanded.  
  
"Keep going. Don't stop," Annie ordered.  
  
He shouted her name, in alarm. "What the hell?" Unbeknownst to him, crystals were blooming up up his leg. He hadn't felt it through his boots, through their shared ecstacy.  
  
"This is for forever," Annie promised.  
  
"Annie, I can't--"  
  
"But I will. Be with me. Don't stop." She flexed her secret muscles around him, trapping him into bliss. Covering them with her power.  
  
"Annie, Annie!" There was no "yes" or "no" when there was Annie. He came into eternity, the minor things of conscience and dilemma hushed as he lost himself to a titan.

Annie covered his lips with hers, his heart thundering at her backbone. Sunlight fell luminously on her shameless smile and flushed nudity.  
  
Whatever grief, strife, and mutually assured destruction befell their warring countries didn't matter. They stayed unbroken. Perfectly shielded in crystal, the Colossus lifted his satisfied lover, her leg kicked up victoriously.

_Fin_.

* * *

Please check out [ermioney](https://ermioney.tumblr.com/) and leave bombastic comments. Chances are, you've seen her fanart.

**Author's Note:**

> I've edited this thing five times because I can't spell Colossus, Colossal, or Bertholdt. This is why Annie doesn't have a last name in this fic.


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